DaBruinz said:
The FACT is that there are 2 other professional football leagues that players could go to if they wanted. Also, the last I looked, most of these players are college graduates. They don't HAVE to play football.
The other two professional football leagues are in no way competition for the NFL. The level of salaries, exposure, and everything else are far different. There's just no comparison and bringing them up as valid alternatives for a player just reinforces my point that the teams hold most of the cards when it comes to the players.
You seem to have a habit of misquoting me. You've done it twice now. The entire PRODUCT is the NFL GAMES. That includes the coaches and yes, even the cheerleaders. The players do make up a majority of the product, but not the ENTIRE product as you insinuated in your initial post. Also, the Jerseys are part of the product.
I'm trying not to be as pissy and argumentative back to you as you are to me, but ... how could I possibly misquote you? I cut-n-paste your quotes directly from your posts. As Inigo Montoya once said ... I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Again, you're making my point for me. Yes, the cheerleaders are part of the games, as are the jerseys. But none of that matters much to the popularity of the game. The players are what people pay to see, not that other stuff.
First off, all I have done is blow huge holes in YOUR assertions by using FACT. If you consider that denigrating, well, that is your problem. The only assertion I have made is to say that you truly don't understand the situation you are commenting on. And, so far, you haven't proven that you understand it.
Um, no, you didn't blow any sort of holes using any sort of facts. Again, that word doesn't seem to mean what you think it means. Here's a fact: the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2002 against the St. Louis Rams. Here's an opinion: the CFL is "competition" for the NFL. Or the players aren't the chief spokespeople for the teams. I think they are (Tom Brady is the face of the Patriots far more than whomever the official "spokesperson" actually is). The players have far more to do with how the team is perceived than the actual spokespeople employed by the team. But, you see, what I just said is my "opinion." It's not a fact. If you want to argue my opinion, fine, that's what message boards are for. MoLewisRocks did it very well above, and I enjoyed reading and responding to his post. Yours ... not so much.
Yes, the players are amazing atheletes. However, without the coaches, the Players wouldn't be able to perform in a cohesive unit. Without the owners, the Players wouldn't have a place to play and they wouldn't be making the money they are making.
Now here, you make a good point. Coaches are very important in the NFL, far more than in any other sport, and I didn't include that enough in what I said earlier. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that they are almost as much of the product as the players, since the strategy of the game is such a big reason a lot of people watch, especially hard-core fans. So ... I'll go along with your first point (see? I'm very reasonable to actual arguments).
The second point, I don't agree with much. The owners make a difference, sure. I'm not saying they shouldn't make any money at all. I just think their contribution to the enterprise is far below what the players bring.
I think you need to re-read MY comments again. No where did I comment on whether you were leaning for or against Deion's contract request. I commented on the fact that you don't seem to have a valid perspective on the situation when you make comments like :" It just bugs me when writers whose entire job is based on the fact that people find the players exciting turn around and bash those players' salary requests." It sure comes across as you slamming the people on here who are commenting on Deion's contract demands. You couldn't have been commenting on Borges since he wasn't bashing Branch for his salary request. Borges was actually bashing the Patriots.
You are completely misreading what I said. How does a statement on "writers whose entire job is based on the fact that people find players exciting" have anything to do with posters here? Do people get paid to comment here? If so, where do I sign up? I wasn't commenting on Borges. I was commenting on Mike Florio and the general tendency of sports writers to act as if players' salary demands are ridiculous.
Well, I didn't comment on your original post. I commented on a follow-up post where you made, what I believe to be, erroneous statements regarding the structure of the NFL.
Sigh. In the very section you quoted from me, I say, "As for Deion's situation, I actually hold no particular position on it. The way the cap is structured, and my interest in the Patriots having a winning team, probably leans me against his position." I say right there explicitly that I probably lean against giving Deion the money he asks for, but that I hold no particular position on it. I actually don't really get into the stories of what the salary demands of players are, mostly because I find them almost universally tedious because of the very attitude I'm talking about.
BTW, since you seem to think that the players are involved in the R&D of the game, could you please explain that? I'm sure everyone here would be interested in how the players are the drivign force between the play development, strength & conditioning, and even facility layout.
Well, it was hardly the main thrust of what I said, but ... mainly I was talking about strength and conditioning. One of the biggest differences in today's game as opposed to years ago is the size, speed, and athletic ability of the players. And it's not primarily because of the strength work at the pro level. These guys come into the NFL huge, strong, and fast. Players aren't mindless robots doing weight reps and running drills designed by others. They are active participants, trying new theories, going to top performance institutes, weighing the relative advantages of different workout regimes.
Play development is from the coaches, whom I mentioned above are actually a part of the product as well ... facility layout? Yeah, that's a big factor in the growth of the NFL.
Look, your tone doesn't give me much faith that you are actually interested in an open give and take of ideas, but here's what I'm saying in a nutshell: My point at the beginning was that to imply, as Mike Florio did, that the teams don't hold the lion's share of the leverage in contract negotiations with players, especially rookies, is wrong. Some people jumped on that, saying, among other things, that most employees don't enjoy the advantages that NFL players do. My reply was to detail that NFL players aren't normal "employees," like the folks working at a WalMart or in a factory, that they are actually employee and product all rolled into one. I never said that owners were useless; they aren't. Just that the ratio of importance of owner/employee is far different in sports than in other jobs, that players are A LOT more important part of the business than in traditional jobs.
